It’s been one of those days. rainy and cold. Things not going as I hope or expect. It’s depressing and frustrating. In my foul mood, I looked for blogs by people with cancer. I found several. They only blackened my mood. I need weed. And booze. Some good news would help too.

I’ve had the goddamned cancer for fifteen years now with several surgeries along the way. I look in the pink of health but there is one or more metastases growing somewhere or other.

It’s said, though not widely acknowledged, that when treating cancer, you get three bites at the apple. I’ve had two. The third? Either a trial vaccine or some terrible chemo. I got a note from the doc: time for two more tests. Then it’ll be time to kiss my ass goodbye.

But I keep plugging away. Do I brood over my cancer and its side effects? I try not to. Mostly, I don’t. Days — even weeks — go by without thinking about my new normal vs. the old one — and pain and death. Brooding would be really, really counterproductive.

My biggest issue is I’d like to do something useful before I croak. And remunerative, such that Jo will be OK. Maybe not swell, but OK. Of course she’s got family; five siblings, so she’s not going to become a bag lady. Of course we wish that we could both go at the same time. Perhaps a meteor will smash into the bedroom in the AM when we are cuddled up? Nah. Maybe some ISIS scum will gun us down at the mall.

One of my biggest problems with the cancer is I’ve never felt free to simply blow up. Do a drunken rant to my friends and family. A couple of times I’ve made the attempt but got shut down after a few words leaked out. Whining. Sell-pity. Wallowing. “Oh, stop it. You’re just fine.” The closest I’ve come is the book referred to at the top of the page. Nobody reads it but it was fun to write and provided some sort of therapy.

We could move to Jo’s family compound in Illinois, get some righteous weed from a family connection, some cheap booze from Jewel, zone out and wait for the tumor to kill me. I gotta admit the temptation is strong.

So, Carly Fiorina, a good, solid Republican, has decided she should be president of the USA. Is she worthy of such an office? Hummm.

Ms Fiorina ran one of the biggest, high-tech companies in the country, Hewlett-Packard. She did so for six years. She also shit-canned 30,000 Americans and sent the jobs overseas. For this and other blunders, she eventually got the sack. The day after the Board of Directors showed her the door, the company’s stock went up.

Carly Fiorina — and all other corporate pooh-bahs who aspire to the Oval Office — have one glaring disqualification: They’re all dictators. They only have one constituent to please, i.e., themselves. Just like Stalin, Hitler or Pol Pot or Henry VIII.

Think I exaggerate? Consider that if a dictator issues an order or a policy that will ruin the country, everyone must nevertheless toe the line. Should anyone dare to disagree or raise a question, it’s off to the gulag or the gibbet. In a corporation, the CEO (the dictator) enjoys similar power, though milder: You just get fired, which is the corporate version of the death sentence.

Dictators and CEOs, Carly Fiorina included, rule by fear. If you are unwilling to endure humiliation or a demand to do something unethical, you get the boot and a bad recommendation.

Ah, but with a president, it’s way different. The president can only rule through cooperation and accommodation. Is a president is going to fire an uncooperative congress or supreme court? Hardly, if the president pisses them off, they can fire the president.

And if not actually impeaching the president, they’ll tie him or her up in knots. His or her agenda will go right down the toilet. As will all nominations. As will domestic and foreign policies. No, any CEO who becomes president and tries to play the dictator, will end up a toothless, powerless joke.

It’s that time of year and the bugs are out again. Last evening, a mosquito landed on my arm but before I could administer the lethal swat, it flew off. A mosquito is one of the littlest things on earth, but . . .

It’s an improbable creature, but consider that its brain about the size of a pin point. Yet that brain can operate:

Six independent but coordinated legs with several joints each. These legs can walk in any direction.

A set of fully controllable wings.

A sex-based reproductive system that lays eggs.

Eyes.

Antenna that can spot air-breathing animals and can find said animals once detected.

Mouth parts consisting of:

Reciprocating saw blades to cut through the skin

A siphon to suck out the blood

A pump to do the sucking

A scabbard to hold all this apparatus

A metamorphic system that takes it from egg to larva to nymph to adult.